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Remembering Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse
Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse fell asleep in Jesus (the beautiful phrase Paul used when writing to the Thessalonians) early on the morning of August 30, 2011. She was just shy of her 89th birthday. Dr. Rittenhouse was an Adventist musician, performer and conductor who led an orchestra of young people on tours around the world with the mission of bringing people together through great music. She was still working up until her death. Last summer she conducted her New England Youth Ensemble at the General Conference session in Atlanta, Georgia. After a long life that influenced generations of musicians and audiences, she is finally at rest.
In 2004, I interviewed many of the musicians who toured with her over the years, as well as composer John Rutter — and Rittenhouse herself — for a profile published in Spectrum. At that time her Oratorio based on texts in Revelation had just premiered at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
The story is republished below. —Alita Byrd
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Inevitably, it begins with a 2am phone call. The cultured, cracked voice on the other end gives no hint of apology for waking you at such an hour. Rittenhouse wants to know whether you are coming on the next tour, whether you are joining the orchestra, whether you will be a much-needed oboist in an upcoming performance. “You can sleep when you’re dead,” as one oft-repeated Rittenhouse saying goes.
Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse has always squeezed every drop of richness out of life. She doesn’t waste time sleeping, arguing or being overly polite. In the more than 30 years she has directed the New England Youth Ensemble, Rittenhouse has demonstrated to her students and her audiences that a life lived without fear—a life where stretching the possible to its farthest limit becomes the norm—reaps untold rewards. And behind every performance, behind every story, behind every impossible-sounding scheme Rittenhouse dreams up, stands a mission—a mission to bring people together through great music.
And it’s true that Rittenhouse hasn’t bothered to sleep much in her life. In her spare time during the last 30 years—between international tours and rehearsals in Takoma Park and South Lancaster and the endless organization involved in managing what may be the world’s most frequently touring orchestra—she wrote an Oratorio, called The Vision of the Apocalypse. On March 2 of this year her work was premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York with a massive orchestra, a full choir with a second response choir in the back of the hall, four soloists and a narrator who was Rittenhouse herself, standing at the microphone in a glittering dress and reading powerful words from Revelation.
“It was what I had dreamed of,” Rittenhouse said. “It was one of the greatest nights of my life.”
Among the audience that night at Carnegie Hall were numbers of long-time New England Youth Ensemble players and their families who flew in just for the performance—several flying from the West Coast for the day and back for work the next morning. Many others were able to get enough time off work to rehearse and play in the Oratorio. It was a reunion of hundreds of people who had worked with Rittenhouse over the years and whose lives had been touched by her dynamic personality and sense of mission.
Rittenhouse has been working on the Oratorio for nearly 40 years. “I always put it aside because I didn’t know if the music was worthy of the words,” Rittenhouse told the orchestra. Each of the three angels’ messages are set to music in different movements and the opening chorus is a setting of Psalm 90.
“I can’t imagine the Adventist three angels’ message has ever been set to music and played in Carnegie Hall before,” said Larry Kidder, who has played with the orchestra since 1973. “I’m surprised not more of the Adventist leadership was there to hear the Adventist message being proclaimed from a very secular venue.”
Rittenhouse was inspired to write the opening chorus for The Apocalypse when she was in Japan in 1966 performing her first Oratorio. Later she worked on it for four summers in France with Nadia Boulanger, who taught composers like Aaron Copland, Philip Glass and Virgil Thomson, and is often considered the world’s greatest influence on 20th century music. Boulanger was “so encouraging,” Rittenhouse said. “She said that it must be performed.”
So Rittenhouse continued to work on the Oratorio, but she had plenty of other things to take up her time and she got discouraged. “Last summer I said to myself, either do it now or put it away,” Rittenhouse said. “People are going to get tired of hearing about it. So I gave it one more try and miraculously, everything came together.”
The premiere of her work at Carnegie Hall is only the most recent of Rittenhouse’s numerous triumphs; she organizes two major tours a year, playing for kings, queens and
presidents in some of the most famous halls and cathedrals in the world, and in a remarkable number of little Adventist churches. Tour stories, from the sublime to the ridiculous, have been told and retold through the generations of orchestra members until exaggeration and fact have merged into one glorious legend. As Kidder put it: “How does one top the experience of being in the New England Youth Ensemble? The rest of life is downhill from there.”
And it’s true that with Rittenhouse, whether you are playing away in the orchestra or listening quietly in the audience, you feel that you are in the presence of someone who makes things happen and who changes things for the better. Rittenhouse brings music and beauty to people around the world, while demonstrating to her orchestra the power of music to touch lives and preach the word of God. This is her mission, and the driving force behind everything she does.
One of the standard phrases Rittenhouse uses in her offering call at concerts is that music “reaches across barriers and brings people together.” Her voice breaks as she tells about playing in the South African townships to “the Vendas, the Xhosas and the Zulus who outside were killing each other, but inside the church were singing together. And they begged us to play and we played for them and they sang for us. . .”
When newer orchestra members have the opportunity to take a South African tour themselves and hear the glorious music in the townships, the story they can repeat word-for-word comes alive and they begin to see for themselves the deeper value of music. “As I’ve gotten older I can’t seem to find that in society,” said Patrick Bitzer, who played with the orchestra both at Atlantic Union College and Columbia Union College and has often served as Rittenhouse’s tour manager and right-hand man. To Bitzer, one of the most memorable of the tours was playing for King Hussein of Jordan’s birthday party and for Leah Rabin, widow of the assassinated Israeli prime minister, in the same 1996 trip. “How music could be used to reach across political and religious lines blew me away,” he said.
With an unswerving belief in ‘the mission’ at her core, the determined character traits Rittenhouse already possesses become even more pronounced. She refuses to take no for an answer when she feels something is important, and she insists that the show must go on—no matter what. She pushes and pulls and stretches the boundaries that most of us feel are the rules of society, until what seems impossible is turned into the everyday.
On one of the early tours the orchestra was riding in a big bus up in the hills somewhere in Eastern Europe when the bus came upon a bridge with a load limit. “The driver was very hesitant about taking the bus across,” said Alfred Aalstrup, who is just a few years younger than Rittenhouse and studied violin with her when she first came to AUC. “But Virginia said, ‘Just drive fast.’ So he did.”
Though her face has more lines, her back is more bent and she now wears a wig of reddish curls, Rittenhouse still refuses to be inhibited. Stories of missing players, music and instruments are legendary. With only one or two players, Rittenhouse can still create a memorable concert. “We will play this concert if we have to play it with two sticks!” is a famous Rittenhouse quote.
Certainly the concerts come first, but Rittenhouse is determined about other things too. There may only be an hour or two to take in a city like Prague or Paris, but Rittenhouse is resolute that her kids see the most important sights. “We might have only slept four hours in the last 72, and someone might suggest that instead of going to see the Queen Victoria flower garden at 6am, maybe we could sleep a little longer,” said Shawn Cabey, who started playing with Rittenhouse in 1975 and now takes his talented eight-year-old pianist son to solo on tours. “’You can sleep when you’re dead,’ is all the reply we get.”
Of course, Rittenhouse’s insistence on always doing things her own way can prove a trying experience for those around her. One of the many capable assistants who has helped in the neverending job of managing the orchestra and its tours noted that “it didn’t matter how carefully I planned a sightseeing day—it would have to be changed several times. She has a great ability to change plans five times an hour.” There is also Rittenhouse’s “faulty memory about what she agreed to do—or her selective memory, no one is quite sure which.”
Rittenhouse subtly urges a selective memory on orchestra members, too. “She is the most genuine, authentic and inspired spin doctor I have ever met,” said one, who remembers prayers in the bus that skilfully re-capped and reiterated the triumphant bits of a tour that Rittenhouse wanted remembered and made part of the public record, leaving the more difficult moments behind.
But Rittenhouse doesn’t ask anyone to do things she won’t do herself. She doesn’t have time to waste on trifles; nice hotels and sit-down dinners can squander time and money. She is perfectly willing to sleep on a church pew if that’s where everyone else is sleeping, then share one grimy shower with 40 orchestra members in the morning. And if she does it, an eighteen-year-old certainly can’t grumble.
Cabey remembers travelling to Israel in 1981 and visiting the ancient fortress of Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea. “It was the middle of the desert in July,” Cabey said. “The temperature was well over 100 degrees. There are two ways of getting to the top. One is by cable car and the other is the ramp that was built by the Roman soldiers when they’d finally had enough. Which do you think Dr. Rittenhouse and Harvey take? So here they are in their 60s, plunk plunk plunk up the footpath. They get to the top and they’re fine. These people look like they’ve never seen the sun in their lives, but do they put on sunscreen? Ho ho ho, what’s sunscreen? All these teenagers are just dying, and here are these two tripping along. By not acknowledging the difficulty, the difficulty does not exist.”
Rittenhouse’s ability to come out on top no matter what obstacles stand in her path is adopted by the orchestra members, who find their own ways of coping in tricky situations. Rittenhouse frequently announces songs or soloists no one is expecting. But soloists get up and perform difficult pieces beautifully without warming up and without any visible surprise. Once the brass started Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles” in a different key than the one written and the rest of the orchestra simply adapted. Of course, there is often the complaint that the orchestra plays the same musicad nauseum; so to keep themselves entertained, some of the more cheeky musicians play with the sheet music to Handel’s Overture to the Royal Fireworks or Sibelius’ Finlandia upside down. Shawn Cabey, who is a brilliant pianist, claims he was a lousy violinist but Rittenhouse said he had to learn to play an orchestra instrument if he was going to tour with the orchestra and play piano solos. “So I sat in the back of the seconds and got very good at pretending to play from age nine to 14,” Cabey said. “I put soap on my bow so that it made no sound and I could just saw away.”
Nearly everyone who has come in contact with her has a story illustrating the well-known adage that Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse will not take ‘no’ for an answer. She has forced Communist officials who cancelled a tour to retract. She has talked harried airport officials into putting timpani, basses and a 200-pound harp into the bottom of the plane. She has talked recalcitrant players into changing their plans—not only into coming on a weekend tour, but into changing their plans for college and often their careers.
Even world-famous composer John Rutter, one of the best-known living composers who has conducted the New England Youth Ensemble more than 60 times in Carnegie Hall has experienced her inability to accept refusals. He tells how Rittenhouse wanted him to conduct the orchestra on its South Africa tour in 2000.
“It was really just that she ignored me when I said no,” Rutter said. “I was under a lot of time pressure and I wrote her a two or three-page fax explaining how I would love to join the tour to South Africa, but it would have to be another time. We met in New York shortly after and I was apprehensive. I knew she would have seen my long fax. So I said, ‘Well, Virginia, I suppose you saw my note about the tour.’ She said, ‘Oh, I think I saw something, but you’re coming, of course you’re coming.’ And I know when I’m beaten. That’s when I realized that if she’s operated that way for the last 50 years, no wonder she’s gotten so much accomplished.”
And Rutter went on to conduct the ensemble in concerts across South Africa then and again two years later. “The tour was inspiring and uplifting,” Rutter said. “We didn’t just appear in prestigious venues, but in the townships too. She didn’t care whether the audience was made up of officials or poor township children. She was just as eager to demonstrate what the orchestra could do to the children as to the gilded audiences in Cape Town City Hall.”
It isn’t only the lives of far-flung audiences that have come under Rittenhouse’s spell. Perhaps more than anyone, she makes a great impact on the people who work closely with her.
“I’ve learned a lot in her presence,” Rutter said. “If I feel bored or tired or want to give up, I think of her and find a bit more strength. . . Some people in life have exceptional force of personality without ever having to raise their voice. She is one.”
After the last big concert on the 2000 South African tour, some of the students asked Rutter if he would stay to see any of the natural sites, like Victoria Falls, before heading back to London. He joked that he didn’t need to, because he had already encountered a force of nature, and after Dr. Rittenhouse, what else was there?
It is a great compliment that a musician and composer like Rutter, with a towering reputation the world over, not only happily continues to conduct Rittenhouse’s orchestra in Carnegie Hall, but has also toured with the orchestra, recorded a concert they played in England’s Ely Cathedral, and invited the whole orchestra to his home twice for a gourmet vegetarian lunch.
Rutter first met Rittenhouse in 1987 when she requested a meeting with him to get some feedback on the score of her Oratorio. They spent an afternoon at Rutter’s home in England with the music spread out on a table in front of them. “I was certainly struck by her and by what she had written,” Rutter reported. “I had not yet come across the Ensemble, but fate brought us together the next year.” MidAmerica Productions asked Rutter, who had recently begun conducting for some of their Carnegie concerts, whether he would like to try out this new orchestra they had found. “I remember being impressed by their attentiveness and attitude, as well as the dynamic presence of Dr. Rittenhouse at the front stand,” Rutter said. After that first concert, Rutter, who is known for being ruthlessly exacting when it comes to the way music is played, agreed to work with the orchestra again. “I realized one could throw some challenges at them,” he said. “Some players were virtuosic and some had not been learning their instruments very long, but they all made music at a level that was wonderful to listen to and had a sense of style and ensemble which was exceptional.”
He admires Rittenhouse not only as a person with extraordinary willpower, but also as a true musician. “I have always been struck by how good the string players are at playing Baroque music,” he said. “I have realized Dr. Rittenhouse’s training lies behind this, as she has taught many of the string players personally. Dr. Rittenhouse is from a generation where playing tended to be indulgent, but she never has any of that. Tempos are brisk and there is an extraordinary sense of vitality in the playing. She has jumped right into the modern ideas on interpretation, leaving lots of contemporaries far behind. . . This is an orchestra that listens to voices. There is a difference between playing a symphony and the Mozart Requiem, but they know this. I think possibly it comes from the Adventist tradition of singing during prayers.”
Certainly an enormous amount of hard work, practice and talent are wrapped up in Rittenhouse’s musical success. But there is something more that makes her what she is. Cabey has thought for many years about Rittenhouse’s dynamic presence and how it is that she has created such tremendous success in everything she does. He says that Rittenhouse’s incredible talent and workaholic nature help, but that isn’t what really sets her apart. “She visualizes being at the end product,” he said. “She visualizes where she wants to be, then makes commitments that make her get there. Say you are young, strong and athletic, but you can’t swim. Most of us would plan to take swimming lessons, call around for teachers, go out and buy a swimming suit—do all those rational things first. She just jumps out of the rowboat and keeps her eye on the island. She just decides what her goal is and gets there. If you take even a part of that philosophy and incorporate it into your life, it will have an enormous impact on an enormous number of people. She has taught us all a lot—a lot more than just music lessons.”
Rittenhouse’s ‘mission’ has inspired an uncountable number of students over the last half-century, who are now in turn touching the lives of others. Students who played in the New England Youth Ensemble have gone on to start string ensembles of their own, to be professional musicians, to be doctors, teachers and missionaries. Many of the teachers who conduct music programs at Adventist schools across the country spent years touring with Rittenhouse. Naomi Burns Delafield, who played as concertmistress of the orchestra for many years after it moved to CUC, has started a string orchestra in Alberta that is currently playing concerts to raise money for children in Afghanistan who have lost limbs in landmine accidents. “I was headed for either farm management or veterinary nursing in Australia, because I hated the violin,” Naomi said. She first met Rittenhouse when the orchestra was touring Australia in 1988 and she was just 14. Like the first encounters of so many others, Naomi was urged to play for Rittenhouse and that evening she played the second movement of the Mendelssohn violin concerto with the orchestra for a concert. Rittenhouse kept in touch and, with the help of other orchestra members including violist David Delafield, convinced Naomi to come to CUC when she started college.
After graduating from CUC and working as Rittenhouse’s assistant and tour manager for several years, she married fellow orchestra member Delafield and moved with him to Canada. They were only the latest couple in a long line of orchestra couples to wed, including Naomi’s brother Terry, who married another first violinist.
How many orchestra couples have gotten married over the years? “Oh my, I think the last count was 25 weddings of ensemble members,” Rittenhouse said. But many say this count is probably outdated. There are obvious reasons for this kind of inward attraction. “If you weren’t dating someone in the ensemble, you probably wouldn’t see them very often,” said Kidder, who married another orchestra member, as did his two sisters.
Many say that Rittenhouse’s lack of fear and inhibition, as well as her deep sense of mission, comes from her background; she spent most of her early years in Africa as the only child of indomitable missionary parents.
“Caution is foreign to her at the deepest level,” said Cabey. “She grew up as a missionary child in the 1930s, where if you get sick you die. She doesn’t like taking time to analyze and accept things. Her style is just to plough forward.”
“I can’t listen to all the voices saying my ideas are dangerous,” Rittenhouse explained. “It’s very seldom I’ll give up anything—once I feel a thing is valuable I’ll push on beyond the possible.”
Virginia-Gene Shankel was born on October 15, 1922, while her father, George Shankel, was teaching at Canadian Union College in Alberta. Three years later he accepted a call to teach history at Helderberg College near Cape Town, South Africa. Rittenhouse’s mother, a dramatist and musician with a background on the stage, began teaching her young daughter to play the piano and by the time she was three years old, Rittenhouse was already composing her own songs, both words and music.
It is impossible to overestimate the impact Mrs. Shankel had on her daughter. “My mother was the moving spirit behind my life,” Rittenhouse said. “She was my accompanist, school teacher and closest friend. If anything was the influence of my life, it was her. The biggest compliment I could ever get is that I remind someone of my mother. She was witty, deeply spiritual and a marvellous mother and teacher.”
Anyone who knew Mrs. Shankel speaks of her with deep sighs of admiration. “With Mrs. Shankel you were dealing not only with incredible talent in bushels flowing out of every pore, but also dealing with someone with astonishing wisdom and quite an exceptional soul,” Cabey said, who took piano lessons from Rittenhouse’s mother when he was very young, as many of the first orchestra members did. “My mother literally never once disappointed me and she is my adored best friend. But I once told her I thought Mrs. Shankel was even better. That kind of sums it up.”
Rittenhouse certainly inherited her mother’s flair for the dramatic, although people who knew Mrs. Shankel said she had an even greater talent onstage. “Her mother was captivating,” Aalstrup says. “She gave programs at AUC for all the clubs and she was hilarious. Once she sat at the piano, portraying a student at his first recital. She comes to the piano chewing gum like nobody’s business, pulling it out in a long string, and sticking it under the chair. She brought the house down—people couldn’t get enough.”
Some say Rittenhouse inherited her stubborn streak from her father, who was known as a powerful presence on whatever campus he was teaching. Aalstrup took several classes in ancient history from Dr. Shankel at AUC. “He was highly intellectual and yet he had a sense of humour,” Aalstrup said. “His classes were always jam-packed because he had so much experience and exposure to world events. But he was very conservative and always absolutely proper.”
When she was ten years old, Rittenhouse’s parents went home on furlough and the young Virginia-Gene gave her first public performance of her own compositions, which was broadcast on American radio. When the family returned to Africa, they met a group of professional musicians on the boat who encouraged her to play for the University of Cape Town’s College of Music. So at age 13, Rittenhouse won a scholarship for piano, violin and composition. She made her debut with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra at age 14, playing a Beethoven piano concerto, and six months later she made her violin debut. For five years, she was a frequent soloist, incredibly playing both violin and piano. She then won the prestigious London Associated Board Overseas Award, the top music award in the country. She still tells the story with emotion in her voice, mainly because she feels her victory was such a witness. “I wouldn’t travel on Sabbath, so I had to take the old slow train to Pretoria on Saturday night, while the other contestants took the fast train to get there in enough time to rehearse. I didn’t get there until shortly before I had to go on stage and just had time to dash through my piece with the accompanist. My professors were very angry—they said I had a great chance of winning and was giving it all up for nothing. I left the moment I finished because I didn’t expect to win. I’d heard there was a brilliant pianist that morning and the judges had already made up their minds. Then I got word I had won. The head of the university came to me and apologized, telling me to keep my religion because it made me what I was.”
Rittenhouse earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, studied at the world-famous Juilliard School in New York, got a master’s from Boston University and a doctorate from the renowned Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. But despite living in the sphere of some of the greatest musicians and teachers in the world, she dedicated most of her energy to the church she loved so well.
Many people who have worked with Rittenhouse assert that she could have gone on to have a world-class career as a concert performer, but she gave that up to work with young people, training them to take the message of great music to people everywhere. “She gave up her career to give us all one,” as Naomi Burns Delafield said.
Virginia-Gene Shankel met Harvey Rittenhouse at the first North American Division Youth Congress in San Francisco in 1947. “I was head of the orchestra and he was playing cello,” Rittenhouse describes it. They were married in a fairytale wedding on October 22, 1950, with the bridesmaids in long dresses singing pieces composed by Rittenhouse for the occasion, with full orchestral accompaniment.
Three years later, the young couple moved to Jamaica along with the Shankels, when Rittenhouse’s father was asked to be the dean of the college there. Some of Rittenhouse’s funniest stories come from her time in Jamaica, as she put together a small ensemble called the Cockroach Orchestra, in which some of the instruments were homemade. But the group traveled and raised money for the hospital in Jamaica where Harvey worked as a surgeon. Rittenhouse was inspired by Jamaican music and culture and she wrote the Jamaican Suite for violin and piano, which she has performed a number of times, most recently in October 2003 in Carnegie’s recital hall.
The Rittenhouses spent a total of three years in Jamaica; then in 1961 they returned to Atlantic Union College in South Lancaster where they had lived in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1969, the New England Youth Ensemble was born, with “four little kids in the living room,” as Rittenhouse says. The first performance was a Christmas program for the local Kiwanis club. “We thought these little kids, dressed up in cute Swiss costumes, would be amusing for the businessmen,” Rittenhouse said. “But it turned out they were going out the door all choked up and so moved by these little kids playing Bach and Handel. I got my first glimpse of how inspiring young kids playing great music could be.”
The first international tour was to France, England and Scotland in 1973. The young orchestra traveled to Poland in 1974 and then back again in 1975, when they played in the presidential palace for visiting American President Gerald Ford. Thereafter, nearly every year the orchestra has traveled on one major international tour and one major domestic tour, plus endless weekend tours and local performances. They have played in some of the most prestigious cathedrals and concert halls in the world, including Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields and Salisbury Cathedral in England, the Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame in Paris, St. Mark’s in Venice, Dom Cathedral in Salzburg, St. Patrick’s in New York, the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the Roman Amphitheater in Amman Jordan, and of course at nearly a hundred concerts at Carnegie Hall.
Rittenhouse always focuses on the positive. She tells stories about playing on Chinese television for 1.7 billion people and about the great honour of performing for Jordan’s Queen Noor. She is masterful at leaving an impression of success, spinning or overlooking the negatives to create a flawless record of triumph. But Rittenhouse has certainly had her share of heartache and sorrow. In 1976, the orchestra took its first tour to communist Russia. George Shankel, Rittenhouse’s father, drove into Boston to take care of some paperwork for the ensemble. On the way home, he experienced a head-on collision and both drivers were killed. Alfred Aalstrup, dear friend of the Rittenhouses and Shankels, was alerted by a police officer who was trying to locate the family. Aalstrup and his wife went and sat with Mrs. Shankel all night. But together they decided to not inform Rittenhouse in Moscow. “We felt she needed to complete the tour she had worked so hard for. There was nothing she could do anyway,” Aalstrup said. Rittenhouse wasn’t told about the accident until the day after returning home, because her family wanted her to have the moment of triumph in the homecoming.
But that wasn’t the last heartbreak Rittenhouse had to get through. The following year, while on tour near Billings, Montana, the used motor home the Rittenhouses had recently purchased caught fire. Rittenhouse managed to crawl through the roof hatch, while Harvey got out through the windshield after being severely burned. He had been a wonderful cellist, but one arm became almost completely useless after the accident. The most tragic result of the accident, however, was that Mrs. Shankel, who was in her 80s, was killed. Rittenhouse was devastated. “I owe everything to her,” she said.
There were difficult times with the orchestra, too. In the early 1990s, not long after the orchestra began playing in Carnegie Hall with MidAmerica Productions, Rittenhouse became embroiled in a messy political situation at AUC. She had lived near AUC for the better part of 50 years, dedicating her life to the orchestra she based on its campus. But as one musician who has worked with her for many years, said: “Virginia-Gene is the kind of person who makes bureaucrats very nervous. She has always done her own thing and she is sort of out-of-control when it comes to institutions.”
Rittenhouse was accused of racism and a terrible battle fraught with emotion ensued between students, teachers and administrators, ending in Rittenhouse being asked not to return to the AUC campus. “The situation was out of control,” one long-time orchestra member and student at AUC at the time, said. “It felt like a divorce in my family as I was good friends with and respected the administration and both sides of the music department. I went to PUC for my last two years.” Other students left, too.
“It was devastating,” Rittenhouse said. “Because of course our home was here.”
Frank Araujo, who directed music at Takoma Park church and was a friend of Rittenhouse’s, suggested she come to Washington, DC. So in 1993 she began rehearsing with a small group of students and musicians in the basement of Takoma Park church, commuting back and forth eight hours between South Lancaster and Takoma Park every week. “That was the lowest point,” Rittenhouse said. “I thought the orchestra was at its end. We were kind of a motley group that first year, starting with a few young kids, but gradually more people heard about it and joined our weekly rehearsals. Columbia Union College [just down the road from the church] didn’t have an orchestra, so when they asked whether I would join them, of course I said yes. Some of our greatest moments have come since then.”
And Rittenhouse continues to create great moments out of situations others dismiss as impossible. She inspires others with her vision and as more and more people get involved in a project, it takes on a momentum of its own and becomes inevitable. It is her gift for inspiring others that helps her ideas to become reality. Rittenhouse couldn’t do it all by herself. She’s had faithful people too numerous to name working with her over the years—people who stand behind her and find telephone numbers and help her pull her long black dress over her head just before walking on stage. Part of it is certainly a desire to be a part of the mission, but part of it is just Rittenhouse herself, pure and simple. The power of her personality makes people want to help her and win her approval, never mind the bigger picture.
Harvey Rittenhouse might be the most devoted of all. The word most commonly associated with Dr. Harvey is “saint.” He doesn’t miss a tour. You won’t hear him say much, but when he does speak you know immediately that he is an old school gentleman—the kind you just don’t find anymore. He is quietly charming and helpful, limping along slightly lopsided, always with Dr. Rittenhouse’s violin case in his good hand.
“Harvey is wonderful,” Rittenhouse said. “He had to give up surgery when his arm was injured, but he does all the driving, takes care of the treasury work for the orchestra and is very much a part of it all. All the kids love him.”
“If she says get up at 6 o’clock and climb Mt. McKinley, Harvey will do it,” Aalstrup said.
Rittenhouse’s retirement has been a subject of continuing speculation over the last decade and more. But as Rittenhouse ages well into her eighties and as she becomes more stooped and bent, her unstoppable energy has only slightly abated.
Rutter recently asked whether she would be able to enjoy some peace and quiet this summer. “Well, I hope not!” Rittenhouse replied. A European tour is planned, with a visit to a summer string school in Austria. Next summer, Rittenhouse would like to take her Oratorio to South Africa. And there is talk that her Oratorio could be performed at the General Conference session in St. Louis in 2005.
“People did ask me for a while whether I was going to retire, but the new story is that I can’t because they want their children to have this experience too. I would like to quiet down a bit, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, so I’ll keep going while I have the strength. This has been my life—I can’t imagine life without the orchestra, really.”
Rittenhouse hopes that someday, when the time comes, the right person will agree to carry on the work she has dedicated her life to. Talk has floated around for years, maybe even before Rittenhouse left AUC, and quiet feelers have been extended to several people who might be capable of directing the orchestra when she lets it go. But everyone knows that trying to live up to her reputation and abilities is a mammoth, impossible task. And so far, Rittenhouse stubbornly hangs on to the orchestra she loves. Recently, she has agreed to help revive the orchestra at AUC and has the blessing of both colleges to spend one week at AUC, where she and Harvey still live, and the next week at CUC.
“She’s definitely getting older,” Cabey said. “She still has her vitality, but recently I’ve seen her acknowledge some physical limitations and that has never happened before.” But Cabey, who has probably played with the orchestra for more years than any other member, believes Rittenhouse has mellowed in her old age. “I knew her when she was in her early 50s and she is a lot more fun now. You guys get away with stuff we would have been killed for. I think she’s gotten better with age, no question. Now seems to be her absolute best time.”
Certainly her wit, her energy and her spirited sense of fun keep even the youngest orchestra members on their toes. Travis Losey, who played with the orchestra all through the 1990s and married violinist April Bellamy, remembers one Saturday night when the orchestra was sleeping in an Adventist community service center off the Long Island Expressway where they often stay before Carnegie performances. He woke up at 2am to the sound of shuffling around in the next room. Being a responsible soul, Losey worried that someone had broken in and was stealing from the luggage stored there. “I snuck into the doorway,” he said, “to find Dr. Rittenhouse on her tiptoes trying to steal some leftover ice cream from the freezer without waking anyone.”
People might wonder what a woman who recently premiered her own composition at New York’s Carnegie Hall, played by her own orchestra, is doing still sleeping on the floors of community service centers. But no one who knows her can imagine Rittenhouse staying in the Ritz and ordering up room service. Rittenhouse hangs tight to her vision, with no frills attached. Her singleminded dedication to taking music to places other people would never even think to go is inspiring and her vibrant presence works wonders in those around her. “The one or two occasions I have conducted the orchestra without [Rittenhouse], they do well but it is somehow not quite the same,” said Rutter. “I put it down to some kind of personal magic.”
Rittenhouse herself wouldn’t accept that magic is the secret of her success. She admits it helps that she can survive on four hours of sleep (this doesn’t include the short catnaps she more and more frequently indulges in, sometimes even while conducting), but she makes it clear that the real driving force behind her tireless dedication is the deep sense of mission integral to her sense of self. “I believe more deeply every day in the mission of music and what it can accomplish in young people’s lives and for the audience,” Rittenhouse said. “The mission makes me go on.”
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Sat, 09/08/2012
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San Diego Adventist Forum
Sigve Tonstad, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Religion, Loma Linda
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Thank you, Alita, for your inspiring memorial to this inspired and inspiring dedicated Adventist woman musician.
Alita, thanks for the article. You captured the essence of this once in a generation women. Dr Rittenhouse made so many of our lives richer and will be missed.
For anyone who is interested, a Facebook page called 'In Memory of Dr. V.G. Rittenhouse' is rapidly being filled with tributes and memories by orchestra members past and present, and many others who were influenced by Dr. Rittenhouse and her music. Preston Hawes is keeping it up to date with any funeral/memorial information. Check it out.
"Rittenhouse hopes that someday, when the time comes, the right person will agree to carry on the work she has dedicated her life to... But everyone knows that trying to live up to her reputation and abilities is a mammoth, impossible task."
You couldn't have said it better, Alita. Knowing I can never fill her shoes - and ever thankful that she never demanded I do - I'm determined to humbly step beside the massive prints she left behind and keep my promise to her that her mission and ensemble will not end.
Sleep well Dr. Virginia. See you in the morning.
Preston
I will treasure this article as it captures so well much of what was unique, amazing, infuriating, and life-changing about Dr. Rittenhouse. I began playing with the orchestra in 1981 and became a full time member in 1984. I continued playing on and off into the mid 90's and those times remain vivid in my heart and mind. I'm a professional musician, but no other orchestral experience has ever begun to match that of playing under her inspiration - no matter how professional. There was just something special and unique there. A way of helping all of us communicate through the music something that we would have never found, heard or understood otherwise. In thinking back, I'm quite sure my first experience with her in 1981 is what put me firmly on the path of becoming a professional musician, teacher and conductor. And all the best to those who continue her work.
I never knew Ms. Rittenhouse, but I have very fond memories of her father, Dr. Shankel. He was my major professor at Southern. He was the reason I became a history major. He was a dear, kind, gentle man of great intellect. Ms. Rittenhouse came from great stock.
Dr. Rittenhouse was quintessential in her dedication to the Lord, the Church, and advancing the cause of music ministry across the globe. One can only imagine the number of lives this extraordinary woman touched; the many audiences she and her students thrilled; and, the number of years her legacy will endure. We are all better for knowing her!
I feel so privileged to have known this wonderfully, talented woman of God, spirit and character!! She didn't fail to visit Jamaica every Christmas for the past few years to have concerts and to stop and play a piece or two at my church in Kingston. She has inspired me to play with my local orchestra, cello to be exact. I have only dreamed to be under her tutelage. May she finally rest now. Sleep on Dr. Rittenhouse. You will be exceedingly missed but never, ever forgotten. See you in the morning!
Whoa!
Im Just happy that for the last 4 years i have seen her in action doing what she does best with zeal and passion. The Northern Caribbean University Family in Jamaica will surely miss her as Feast of Lights will never be the same again. I can say she helped me to develop a serious appreciation for classical music being the modern Jazz and Neo Soul person i am. She Will Be Greatly Missed.
A great tribute to a wonderful gifted life. It is clear that one thing we can take to heaven is an appreciation for music. I must be full of song, because todate none has come out. I long for the day that I can sing the mighty power of God with my wife Betty. I first spotted her singing in youth chapel at the New York Camp meeting. A long bout with a breathing tube in intensive care took that lovely voice away. Recorded sacred music now feeds our soul.
Time and again the humns and choir of church are the most rewarding part of corporate worship.
What a gift, now at rest. We await, Virginia, once again to organize an AUC orchestra. Tom Z
"In the early 1990s, not long after the orchestra began playing in Carnegie Hall with MidAmerica Productions, Rittenhouse became embroiled in a messy political situation at AUC. ... Rittenhouse was accused of racism and a terrible battle fraught with emotion ensued ..."
The author gives no hint what it involved. Fortunately, there was a good discussion of this a few weeks ago on a Facebook page. When everyone in the US was boycotting South Africa because of apartheid, Rittenhouse insisted on taking the New England Youth Ensemble there--to show support for white South Africans! She is said to have made threats against students should they go to a showing of "Cry Freedom" on campus. Spectrum is always ready to show the worst of administrators--I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse. I'm also surprised Spectrum has never written about this sordid bit of AUC history. Let's hear from all sides of students who dealt with Virginia Gene over the years. She belongs to history now.
Thank you, Alita, for capturing the essence of who Dr. Rittenhouse was for many of us. You can be sure I will be returning to this article regularly for inspiration and a reminder of why I chose to be a musician and educator.
The Shankel family, beginning in the late 1940s when Dr. Shankel became academic dean of AUC, has always intertwined with me and my growing family. He and I became fast and loyal friends until he suddenly was taken.
No one could possible add to the eloquence of Alita's glorious ssummary of Virginia Gene's life. Harvey was the paragon of manhood, especially when married to a phenomenon! How I loved him and how I cherished Virginia Gene.
I think the dictionary gets drained of theright words to describe Virginia Gene--and her mother as well. Seems like no public production ever went as planned. Surprises seemed to be planned. Always energy in capital letters. Always the best for her young musicians, even those floors they slept on and the crushing bus tours. Who will ever forget the snappy words, "You can always sleep when you are dead" (with several variations).
I think Gabriel will zip to her grave, present her with a fresh New Jerusalem violin, and have her lead the way "home." Ah, the whole family together again. Thank you, Lord. Cheers, Herb
"I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse"
Clearly you never really knew the woman.
Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse was a remarkable lady, a great musician, a great teacher and mentor, a friend of music and the arts, and a tremendous, force-of-nature personality. She was a blessing, and a symbol of what is best in Adventist education, which need never settle for mediocrity. She will be sorely missed. Her legacy is the love of music--and the love and pursuit of excellence--that she instilled in the many students who studied with her over the decades.
It's interesting how stories from the past can be seen through different lenses depending on perspective. When I read of Dr. Rittenhouse's death this week a couple of memories came to mind. My family and I were living in South Lancaster, MA at the time of the crisis referred to by Bill Cork. We had just returned from living in Zimbabwe and still had fresh in our minds the visit of the Soweto SDA Choir to Harare. Not only was their music outstanding, but we also felt their hurt and desire to have contact with the "outside" world. When we heard that the NEYE would be visiting RSA we had felt that this would represent an opportunity for the SDA Church to make a non-political statement (we were not aware that the purpose of the tour was "to show support for white South Africans!"). In spite of the fact that the US government was officially taking the stance that there should be no cultural exchanges with RSA, Dr. Rittenhouse doggedly proceeded with her tour. Upon the return of the orchestra we remember the stories members told of visiting the Soweto SDA Church - another going against protocol since the area was considered unsafe and foreigners were advised to stay away. The stories were not about performing for the church members but of the incredible experience of being sung to by the church there. Although it might sound trite this was a case where the blessings of fellowship went two directions. Unfortunately a crisis did emerge as a result of the tour (a crisis from which I don't know that AUC ever recovered) which led to Dr. Rittenhouse's departure from AUC. As I've pondered what took place, while I don't have a pat answer, I've wondered to what extent our Christian witness should be able to supersede political pressures.
Dr. Virginia Rittenhouse will be forever remembered in our family. She welcomed our 13-year old son, Miclen, to join the NEYE as a soloist with unselfish love and adoration for Miclen's God-given musical talent. She called our home often just to find out how Miclen captivated her heart and would love to give Miclen every opportunity she could give him in order to be exposed in spreading the word of God through his violin performance. In spite of her busy schedule, she took time to call and extend an invitation to Miclen to perform in Carnegie Hall and in many other places where NEYE went to give concerts.
Surely, she will receive many crowns in Heaven when Jesus comes again. Yes, we will see you in the morning, Dr. Rittenhouse.
With Much Love,
Miclen with his parents, Helen and Michael
Dr. Rittenhouse's legacy is indeed an ambivalent one. She gave many of us who were her students the tools to fight darker aspects of the NEYE such as elitism and racism: a deep and and life-long love of the profoundly humane practice of great music, and a life-long love of travel and cross-cultural curiosity and engagement. In no small way the NEYE developed in us as adolescents the best of the qualities we needed to overcome the worse our qualities. For that I am very grateful, and despite the ambivalence, will always have love in my heart for her and my fellow musicians.
I first met the Shankels & Rittenhouses as an 8 yearold youngster in Jamaica, WI. I have always been inspired by their dedication to their craft. I had the privelege of being touched by their ministry once more while attending Atlantic Union College in the late 1960's. They had a profound impact on others in music, education & medical matters. May she rest in peace.
The political disaster at AUC happened just my second year in the orchestra. Many of my friends took opposing views, and sure, that was painful. Sure, there was a lot of drama. Feelings were trampled, jobs were lost, people moved away. These are the things that happen when somebody dares to matter in this world. The taller you stand, the more that you dare to be, the stronger the winds. She and Harvey were blessed, immovable bastions of purpose and integrity that the world lacks now.
Those strained political conversations in dark rooms are nothing more than a 20-year-old dusty memory to me, but what Virginia and Harvey sowed into my life lives on in the music that I make every day to earn a living. Because of her, you can hear J.S. Bach in David Archuleta's last pop album; you'll hear bits of Mendelssohn in Smash Mouth's next rock record. Because of her, you'll see me foster a passion for music in the young people in my church as I teach them how to make music together. I have more to thank them for than I could feebly write here.
God worked wonders through the Rittenhouses' ministry. I suppose if you want to live a life where you offend no-one, then simply become resolute to do nothing that matters to anyone and you will succeed.
Ester, "She gave many of us who were her students the tools to fight darker aspects of the NEYE such as elitism and racism"
In all my years with the organization, I never witnessed any "darker aspects of the NEYE" like racism or elitism. In my experience, these are simply construed.
Juan put it very very well. Better than I could have.
Preston:
Surely it's the nature of experience, all experience, that it must be construed? This was my experience; your perspective is obviously different, as could be expected. Both are valid as perspectives. However, I believe you missed my larger point, which was not accusatory. It was to affirm the ultimately positive and life-long value of that experience, without denying its limitations. Indeed, the very human failings themselves had valuable lessons to teach, not the least of which is that one can still deeply love and respect a teacher who nevertheless has caused pain, despite giving us immensely valuable gifts.
Why were Rittenhouse and Bingham relocated from AUC to CUC (now Washington Adventist University) ?
Bill Cork: "I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse"
Bill -
Each of us is cursed with great shortcomings. Our flaws are as commonplace as dirt on a shoe. One in ten million of us is blessed with talents that, in the final analysis, positively transform the lives of hundreds of people in ways that will ripple through time. Those of us who fill these pages with hymns to Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse's memory are not posthumous delusional toadies. What we are is grateful. Deeply, eternally, grateful.
Alita,
Thanks for republishing this article. I've enjoyed Dr. V-G's music and stories over the years. The orchestra accompanied the chorus I sang with, La Camerata Nuove, on tour to the Holy Land in 1994, where the highlights were performing The Messiah in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and The Choral Fantasy in Amman for King Hussein's birthday; then again in 1996 when the highlights were Beethoven 9th performed in the Roman Amphitheatre in the Old Amman, the Many Moods of Christmas performed in the night air at the Bethlehem University (O Little Town of Bethlemen means something different to me) and the most moving part of that tour--performing Rutter's Out of the Deep and Psalm 23 for Mrs. Laila Rabin. Dr. V-G and Dr. Harvey taught by example. Their welcoming of people "of every tribe, kindred and tongue" reminds me that to be prepared to live in Heaven and the New Earth, one must live that way in the here and now.
Sleep now Dr. V-G, soon your Maker will return to take you to glory where you'll be joined by sooooo many persons to whom you've shown glimpses of Heaven and the Savior through your music. I plan to be among that throng as well.
Ester:
I see what you're saying, but I just do not associate the word "ambivalence", or its connotations in any way with Dr. VGR. Her existence, influence, and mission was everything but "ambivalent."
Virginia-Gene was my second cousin (my mothers first cousin) and I can tell you that this article is right on! Any chance we could get to sit around the table and hear her stories, we took! Granted, those stories were so much fun because they were "fishy" in nature...they just kept getting bigger and bigger with time! She never failed to bring smiles and laughter to all of us.
Although I grew up hearing her music, that is not what I remember most about her. She was a wonderful hostess, a kind soul, more energetic than I am at half her age and very in love with her husband, who he in turn, adored her.
I count it a blessing to have called her family.
I'm trying to figure out whether the person who voted "down" on my post about doing my best to carry on Virginia's dream and mission is voting down because of the mission or voting down because of the "me" part of it... *befuddled*
Regardless, Virginia's amazing drive was such an inspiration, and her care for those less fortunate was truly admirable. The energy of the Ensemble will remain focused on the orphans and street kids of any country we visit and will always play music that is, in the words of J.S. Bach for the "Glory of God, and the Refreshment of the Spirit".
I'm quite sure there isn't anything to vote "down" about that.
Preston, earlier you wrote
>>> In all my years with the organization, I never witnessed any "darker aspects of the NEYE" like racism or elitism. In my experience, these are simply construed.
I have enjoyed several NEYE concerts over the years, and understand that they have specialize in a particular set of genres (probably not the right word) of music, and do not play many of the genres that are played on 95% of the MP3 players, AM/FM/Satellite/internet radio stations, and at entertainment venues through-out the country. I don't recall hearing any Rock or more recent styles come from their instruments - not even Moody Blues or Pink Floyd or other such that have been successfully played by world class professional orchestras.
On the other hand, at the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert I went to last year, I heard Grieg, Mozart, and Rock all in one concert.
Such complete exclusion of even the best of Rock and more modern styles, the exclusion of what is undoubtably the music of the masses, can be construed as 'elitism'.
/Bevin
Bevin,
While I understand and appreciate your perspective - from a musicians point of view I would have to respectfully disagree. But first I should point out one mistake - the ensemble learns and/or performs modern 20th and 21st C classical music quite often. It is an essential part of any orchestral musician's education.
While I can observe some of the valuable and interesting characteristics of fusion programming, the Ensemble is not only in the business of mission, it is in the business of education. Any orchestral instrumentalist leaving their undergraduate years and expecting to carry on into further study or into the professional field must have mastered a vast repertoire of classical music. I cannot think of a single symphony orchestra for which a musician would audition that would ever require Rock, Alternative, or Jazz on it's audition repertoire list. The entirety of the rep is drawn from the classical repertoire; Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, etc. And to be completely honest, the amount of repertoire a budding musician must master can barely be learned in 4 years alone, even by the most talented of students. Regardless of the other redeemable qualities of these different genres, I would be wasting their time and not doing my job by not preparing them adequately.
And without going into the specifics of musical structure. It is simple fact that perhaps with the exception of some forms of Jazz, the vast majority of Rock, Blues and Alternative are just not harmonically and structurally sophisticated as much of the Classical repertoire. That isn't to say there are not complex characteristics of these other genres (in terms of rhythm occasionally, stacked chord structures and clusters), but the bare structure of it, the stuff that when properly learned will serve the professional ambitions of an orchestral musician, studio teacher, or soloist, are just not found within those genres.
I think your criticism is better reserved for professional orchestras that serve as entertainment to the masses, and is a very valid point; the balance of which is presently being fleshed out by a great many soon-to-be bankrupt Symphony Orchestras.
That said, I don't see some genres easily fitting in to our mission of Musical Education and Spiritual and Intellectual edification within our parameters of music that "Brings Glory to God, and Refreshment of Spirit".
Blessings,
Preston
"...the deep sense of mission integral to her sense of self..." But this is ALL you need, "Elisha"....JUST Change "integral to HIS sense of self"... Do not fear at all. EVER.
Love,
Ruth.
the previous regarding Preston´s comment on Aug 31....
Hi DEAR ALITA...
i feel so lucky and honored to have shared music stand in the NEYE´s 1st violins with a great writer...ALITA BYRD.
warm regards friend.thanks for this article.
Bille - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 19:27
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Thank you, Alita, for your inspiring memorial to this inspired and inspiring dedicated Adventist woman musician.
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Travis Losey - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 21:02
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Alita, thanks for the article. You captured the essence of this once in a generation women. Dr Rittenhouse made so many of our lives richer and will be missed.
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Alita Byrd - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 21:04
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For anyone who is interested, a Facebook page called 'In Memory of Dr. V.G. Rittenhouse' is rapidly being filled with tributes and memories by orchestra members past and present, and many others who were influenced by Dr. Rittenhouse and her music. Preston Hawes is keeping it up to date with any funeral/memorial information. Check it out.
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Preston Hawes - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 21:12
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"Rittenhouse hopes that someday, when the time comes, the right person will agree to carry on the work she has dedicated her life to... But everyone knows that trying to live up to her reputation and abilities is a mammoth, impossible task."
You couldn't have said it better, Alita. Knowing I can never fill her shoes - and ever thankful that she never demanded I do - I'm determined to humbly step beside the massive prints she left behind and keep my promise to her that her mission and ensemble will not end.
Sleep well Dr. Virginia. See you in the morning.
Preston
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Jenelle Westerbeck Anderson - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 23:09
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I will treasure this article as it captures so well much of what was unique, amazing, infuriating, and life-changing about Dr. Rittenhouse. I began playing with the orchestra in 1981 and became a full time member in 1984. I continued playing on and off into the mid 90's and those times remain vivid in my heart and mind. I'm a professional musician, but no other orchestral experience has ever begun to match that of playing under her inspiration - no matter how professional. There was just something special and unique there. A way of helping all of us communicate through the music something that we would have never found, heard or understood otherwise. In thinking back, I'm quite sure my first experience with her in 1981 is what put me firmly on the path of becoming a professional musician, teacher and conductor. And all the best to those who continue her work.
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Donna Haerich - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 02:56
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I never knew Ms. Rittenhouse, but I have very fond memories of her father, Dr. Shankel. He was my major professor at Southern. He was the reason I became a history major. He was a dear, kind, gentle man of great intellect. Ms. Rittenhouse came from great stock.
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Hamlet - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 03:02
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Dr. Rittenhouse was quintessential in her dedication to the Lord, the Church, and advancing the cause of music ministry across the globe. One can only imagine the number of lives this extraordinary woman touched; the many audiences she and her students thrilled; and, the number of years her legacy will endure. We are all better for knowing her!
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Lisa Davis - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 05:52
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I feel so privileged to have known this wonderfully, talented woman of God, spirit and character!! She didn't fail to visit Jamaica every Christmas for the past few years to have concerts and to stop and play a piece or two at my church in Kingston. She has inspired me to play with my local orchestra, cello to be exact. I have only dreamed to be under her tutelage. May she finally rest now. Sleep on Dr. Rittenhouse. You will be exceedingly missed but never, ever forgotten. See you in the morning!
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Z-Axis - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 06:51
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Whoa!
Im Just happy that for the last 4 years i have seen her in action doing what she does best with zeal and passion. The Northern Caribbean University Family in Jamaica will surely miss her as Feast of Lights will never be the same again. I can say she helped me to develop a serious appreciation for classical music being the modern Jazz and Neo Soul person i am. She Will Be Greatly Missed.
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Tom Zwemer - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 07:58
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A great tribute to a wonderful gifted life. It is clear that one thing we can take to heaven is an appreciation for music. I must be full of song, because todate none has come out. I long for the day that I can sing the mighty power of God with my wife Betty. I first spotted her singing in youth chapel at the New York Camp meeting. A long bout with a breathing tube in intensive care took that lovely voice away. Recorded sacred music now feeds our soul.
Time and again the humns and choir of church are the most rewarding part of corporate worship.
What a gift, now at rest. We await, Virginia, once again to organize an AUC orchestra. Tom Z
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Bill Cork - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 11:33
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"In the early 1990s, not long after the orchestra began playing in Carnegie Hall with MidAmerica Productions, Rittenhouse became embroiled in a messy political situation at AUC. ... Rittenhouse was accused of racism and a terrible battle fraught with emotion ensued ..."
The author gives no hint what it involved. Fortunately, there was a good discussion of this a few weeks ago on a Facebook page. When everyone in the US was boycotting South Africa because of apartheid, Rittenhouse insisted on taking the New England Youth Ensemble there--to show support for white South Africans! She is said to have made threats against students should they go to a showing of "Cry Freedom" on campus. Spectrum is always ready to show the worst of administrators--I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse. I'm also surprised Spectrum has never written about this sordid bit of AUC history. Let's hear from all sides of students who dealt with Virginia Gene over the years. She belongs to history now.
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Rachelle Berthelsen Davis - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 13:29
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Thank you, Alita, for capturing the essence of who Dr. Rittenhouse was for many of us. You can be sure I will be returning to this article regularly for inspiration and a reminder of why I chose to be a musician and educator.
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Herb Douglass - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 19:36
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The Shankel family, beginning in the late 1940s when Dr. Shankel became academic dean of AUC, has always intertwined with me and my growing family. He and I became fast and loyal friends until he suddenly was taken.
No one could possible add to the eloquence of Alita's glorious ssummary of Virginia Gene's life. Harvey was the paragon of manhood, especially when married to a phenomenon! How I loved him and how I cherished Virginia Gene.
I think the dictionary gets drained of theright words to describe Virginia Gene--and her mother as well. Seems like no public production ever went as planned. Surprises seemed to be planned. Always energy in capital letters. Always the best for her young musicians, even those floors they slept on and the crushing bus tours. Who will ever forget the snappy words, "You can always sleep when you are dead" (with several variations).
I think Gabriel will zip to her grave, present her with a fresh New Jerusalem violin, and have her lead the way "home." Ah, the whole family together again. Thank you, Lord. Cheers, Herb
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Musician - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 20:20
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"I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse"
Clearly you never really knew the woman.
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David Read - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 20:36
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Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse was a remarkable lady, a great musician, a great teacher and mentor, a friend of music and the arts, and a tremendous, force-of-nature personality. She was a blessing, and a symbol of what is best in Adventist education, which need never settle for mediocrity. She will be sorely missed. Her legacy is the love of music--and the love and pursuit of excellence--that she instilled in the many students who studied with her over the decades.
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Ken Osborn - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 22:23
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It's interesting how stories from the past can be seen through different lenses depending on perspective. When I read of Dr. Rittenhouse's death this week a couple of memories came to mind. My family and I were living in South Lancaster, MA at the time of the crisis referred to by Bill Cork. We had just returned from living in Zimbabwe and still had fresh in our minds the visit of the Soweto SDA Choir to Harare. Not only was their music outstanding, but we also felt their hurt and desire to have contact with the "outside" world. When we heard that the NEYE would be visiting RSA we had felt that this would represent an opportunity for the SDA Church to make a non-political statement (we were not aware that the purpose of the tour was "to show support for white South Africans!"). In spite of the fact that the US government was officially taking the stance that there should be no cultural exchanges with RSA, Dr. Rittenhouse doggedly proceeded with her tour. Upon the return of the orchestra we remember the stories members told of visiting the Soweto SDA Church - another going against protocol since the area was considered unsafe and foreigners were advised to stay away. The stories were not about performing for the church members but of the incredible experience of being sung to by the church there. Although it might sound trite this was a case where the blessings of fellowship went two directions. Unfortunately a crisis did emerge as a result of the tour (a crisis from which I don't know that AUC ever recovered) which led to Dr. Rittenhouse's departure from AUC. As I've pondered what took place, while I don't have a pat answer, I've wondered to what extent our Christian witness should be able to supersede political pressures.
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The LaiPang Family - Fri, 09/02/2011 - 02:23
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Dr. Virginia Rittenhouse will be forever remembered in our family. She welcomed our 13-year old son, Miclen, to join the NEYE as a soloist with unselfish love and adoration for Miclen's God-given musical talent. She called our home often just to find out how Miclen captivated her heart and would love to give Miclen every opportunity she could give him in order to be exposed in spreading the word of God through his violin performance. In spite of her busy schedule, she took time to call and extend an invitation to Miclen to perform in Carnegie Hall and in many other places where NEYE went to give concerts.
Surely, she will receive many crowns in Heaven when Jesus comes again. Yes, we will see you in the morning, Dr. Rittenhouse.
With Much Love,
Miclen with his parents, Helen and Michael
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Esther - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 02:09
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Dr. Rittenhouse's legacy is indeed an ambivalent one. She gave many of us who were her students the tools to fight darker aspects of the NEYE such as elitism and racism: a deep and and life-long love of the profoundly humane practice of great music, and a life-long love of travel and cross-cultural curiosity and engagement. In no small way the NEYE developed in us as adolescents the best of the qualities we needed to overcome the worse our qualities. For that I am very grateful, and despite the ambivalence, will always have love in my heart for her and my fellow musicians.
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Winston Bent - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 06:18
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I first met the Shankels & Rittenhouses as an 8 yearold youngster in Jamaica, WI. I have always been inspired by their dedication to their craft. I had the privelege of being touched by their ministry once more while attending Atlantic Union College in the late 1960's. They had a profound impact on others in music, education & medical matters. May she rest in peace.
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Juan Portela - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 08:14
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The political disaster at AUC happened just my second year in the orchestra. Many of my friends took opposing views, and sure, that was painful. Sure, there was a lot of drama. Feelings were trampled, jobs were lost, people moved away. These are the things that happen when somebody dares to matter in this world. The taller you stand, the more that you dare to be, the stronger the winds. She and Harvey were blessed, immovable bastions of purpose and integrity that the world lacks now.
Those strained political conversations in dark rooms are nothing more than a 20-year-old dusty memory to me, but what Virginia and Harvey sowed into my life lives on in the music that I make every day to earn a living. Because of her, you can hear J.S. Bach in David Archuleta's last pop album; you'll hear bits of Mendelssohn in Smash Mouth's next rock record. Because of her, you'll see me foster a passion for music in the young people in my church as I teach them how to make music together. I have more to thank them for than I could feebly write here.
God worked wonders through the Rittenhouses' ministry. I suppose if you want to live a life where you offend no-one, then simply become resolute to do nothing that matters to anyone and you will succeed.
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Preston Hawes - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 20:36
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Ester, "She gave many of us who were her students the tools to fight darker aspects of the NEYE such as elitism and racism"
In all my years with the organization, I never witnessed any "darker aspects of the NEYE" like racism or elitism. In my experience, these are simply construed.
Juan put it very very well. Better than I could have.
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Ester - Sun, 09/04/2011 - 09:09
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Preston:
Surely it's the nature of experience, all experience, that it must be construed? This was my experience; your perspective is obviously different, as could be expected. Both are valid as perspectives. However, I believe you missed my larger point, which was not accusatory. It was to affirm the ultimately positive and life-long value of that experience, without denying its limitations. Indeed, the very human failings themselves had valuable lessons to teach, not the least of which is that one can still deeply love and respect a teacher who nevertheless has caused pain, despite giving us immensely valuable gifts.
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Federico - Sun, 09/04/2011 - 12:09
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Why were Rittenhouse and Bingham relocated from AUC to CUC (now Washington Adventist University) ?
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Shawn Cabey - Sun, 09/04/2011 - 12:39
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Bill Cork: "I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse"
Bill -
Each of us is cursed with great shortcomings. Our flaws are as commonplace as dirt on a shoe. One in ten million of us is blessed with talents that, in the final analysis, positively transform the lives of hundreds of people in ways that will ripple through time. Those of us who fill these pages with hymns to Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse's memory are not posthumous delusional toadies. What we are is grateful. Deeply, eternally, grateful.
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Heather L Griffin - Mon, 09/05/2011 - 17:27
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Alita,
Thanks for republishing this article. I've enjoyed Dr. V-G's music and stories over the years. The orchestra accompanied the chorus I sang with, La Camerata Nuove, on tour to the Holy Land in 1994, where the highlights were performing The Messiah in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and The Choral Fantasy in Amman for King Hussein's birthday; then again in 1996 when the highlights were Beethoven 9th performed in the Roman Amphitheatre in the Old Amman, the Many Moods of Christmas performed in the night air at the Bethlehem University (O Little Town of Bethlemen means something different to me) and the most moving part of that tour--performing Rutter's Out of the Deep and Psalm 23 for Mrs. Laila Rabin. Dr. V-G and Dr. Harvey taught by example. Their welcoming of people "of every tribe, kindred and tongue" reminds me that to be prepared to live in Heaven and the New Earth, one must live that way in the here and now.
Sleep now Dr. V-G, soon your Maker will return to take you to glory where you'll be joined by sooooo many persons to whom you've shown glimpses of Heaven and the Savior through your music. I plan to be among that throng as well.
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Preston Hawes - Tue, 09/06/2011 - 22:04
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Ester:
I see what you're saying, but I just do not associate the word "ambivalence", or its connotations in any way with Dr. VGR. Her existence, influence, and mission was everything but "ambivalent."
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Debbie - Thu, 09/08/2011 - 09:04
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Virginia-Gene was my second cousin (my mothers first cousin) and I can tell you that this article is right on! Any chance we could get to sit around the table and hear her stories, we took! Granted, those stories were so much fun because they were "fishy" in nature...they just kept getting bigger and bigger with time! She never failed to bring smiles and laughter to all of us.
Although I grew up hearing her music, that is not what I remember most about her. She was a wonderful hostess, a kind soul, more energetic than I am at half her age and very in love with her husband, who he in turn, adored her.
I count it a blessing to have called her family.
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Preston Hawes - Thu, 09/08/2011 - 18:47
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I'm trying to figure out whether the person who voted "down" on my post about doing my best to carry on Virginia's dream and mission is voting down because of the mission or voting down because of the "me" part of it... *befuddled*
Regardless, Virginia's amazing drive was such an inspiration, and her care for those less fortunate was truly admirable. The energy of the Ensemble will remain focused on the orphans and street kids of any country we visit and will always play music that is, in the words of J.S. Bach for the "Glory of God, and the Refreshment of the Spirit".
I'm quite sure there isn't anything to vote "down" about that.
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bevin - Thu, 09/08/2011 - 22:22
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Preston, earlier you wrote
>>> In all my years with the organization, I never witnessed any "darker aspects of the NEYE" like racism or elitism. In my experience, these are simply construed.
I have enjoyed several NEYE concerts over the years, and understand that they have specialize in a particular set of genres (probably not the right word) of music, and do not play many of the genres that are played on 95% of the MP3 players, AM/FM/Satellite/internet radio stations, and at entertainment venues through-out the country. I don't recall hearing any Rock or more recent styles come from their instruments - not even Moody Blues or Pink Floyd or other such that have been successfully played by world class professional orchestras.
On the other hand, at the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert I went to last year, I heard Grieg, Mozart, and Rock all in one concert.
Such complete exclusion of even the best of Rock and more modern styles, the exclusion of what is undoubtably the music of the masses, can be construed as 'elitism'.
/Bevin
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Preston Hawes - Fri, 09/09/2011 - 14:13
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Bevin,
While I understand and appreciate your perspective - from a musicians point of view I would have to respectfully disagree. But first I should point out one mistake - the ensemble learns and/or performs modern 20th and 21st C classical music quite often. It is an essential part of any orchestral musician's education.
While I can observe some of the valuable and interesting characteristics of fusion programming, the Ensemble is not only in the business of mission, it is in the business of education. Any orchestral instrumentalist leaving their undergraduate years and expecting to carry on into further study or into the professional field must have mastered a vast repertoire of classical music. I cannot think of a single symphony orchestra for which a musician would audition that would ever require Rock, Alternative, or Jazz on it's audition repertoire list. The entirety of the rep is drawn from the classical repertoire; Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, etc. And to be completely honest, the amount of repertoire a budding musician must master can barely be learned in 4 years alone, even by the most talented of students. Regardless of the other redeemable qualities of these different genres, I would be wasting their time and not doing my job by not preparing them adequately.
And without going into the specifics of musical structure. It is simple fact that perhaps with the exception of some forms of Jazz, the vast majority of Rock, Blues and Alternative are just not harmonically and structurally sophisticated as much of the Classical repertoire. That isn't to say there are not complex characteristics of these other genres (in terms of rhythm occasionally, stacked chord structures and clusters), but the bare structure of it, the stuff that when properly learned will serve the professional ambitions of an orchestral musician, studio teacher, or soloist, are just not found within those genres.
I think your criticism is better reserved for professional orchestras that serve as entertainment to the masses, and is a very valid point; the balance of which is presently being fleshed out by a great many soon-to-be bankrupt Symphony Orchestras.
That said, I don't see some genres easily fitting in to our mission of Musical Education and Spiritual and Intellectual edification within our parameters of music that "Brings Glory to God, and Refreshment of Spirit".
Blessings,
Preston
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Ruth Urdiales - Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:26
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"...the deep sense of mission integral to her sense of self..." But this is ALL you need, "Elisha"....JUST Change "integral to HIS sense of self"... Do not fear at all. EVER.
Love,
Ruth.
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Ruth Urdiales - Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:30
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the previous regarding Preston´s comment on Aug 31....
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Ruth Urdiales - Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:33
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Hi DEAR ALITA...
i feel so lucky and honored to have shared music stand in the NEYE´s 1st violins with a great writer...ALITA BYRD.
warm regards friend.thanks for this article.
Bille - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 19:27
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Thank you, Alita, for your inspiring memorial to this inspired and inspiring dedicated Adventist woman musician.
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Travis Losey - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 21:02
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Alita, thanks for the article. You captured the essence of this once in a generation women. Dr Rittenhouse made so many of our lives richer and will be missed.
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Alita Byrd - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 21:04
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For anyone who is interested, a Facebook page called 'In Memory of Dr. V.G. Rittenhouse' is rapidly being filled with tributes and memories by orchestra members past and present, and many others who were influenced by Dr. Rittenhouse and her music. Preston Hawes is keeping it up to date with any funeral/memorial information. Check it out.
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Preston Hawes - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 21:12
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"Rittenhouse hopes that someday, when the time comes, the right person will agree to carry on the work she has dedicated her life to... But everyone knows that trying to live up to her reputation and abilities is a mammoth, impossible task."
You couldn't have said it better, Alita. Knowing I can never fill her shoes - and ever thankful that she never demanded I do - I'm determined to humbly step beside the massive prints she left behind and keep my promise to her that her mission and ensemble will not end.
Sleep well Dr. Virginia. See you in the morning.
Preston
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Jenelle Westerbeck Anderson - Wed, 08/31/2011 - 23:09
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I will treasure this article as it captures so well much of what was unique, amazing, infuriating, and life-changing about Dr. Rittenhouse. I began playing with the orchestra in 1981 and became a full time member in 1984. I continued playing on and off into the mid 90's and those times remain vivid in my heart and mind. I'm a professional musician, but no other orchestral experience has ever begun to match that of playing under her inspiration - no matter how professional. There was just something special and unique there. A way of helping all of us communicate through the music something that we would have never found, heard or understood otherwise. In thinking back, I'm quite sure my first experience with her in 1981 is what put me firmly on the path of becoming a professional musician, teacher and conductor. And all the best to those who continue her work.
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Donna Haerich - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 02:56
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I never knew Ms. Rittenhouse, but I have very fond memories of her father, Dr. Shankel. He was my major professor at Southern. He was the reason I became a history major. He was a dear, kind, gentle man of great intellect. Ms. Rittenhouse came from great stock.
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Hamlet - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 03:02
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Dr. Rittenhouse was quintessential in her dedication to the Lord, the Church, and advancing the cause of music ministry across the globe. One can only imagine the number of lives this extraordinary woman touched; the many audiences she and her students thrilled; and, the number of years her legacy will endure. We are all better for knowing her!
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Lisa Davis - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 05:52
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I feel so privileged to have known this wonderfully, talented woman of God, spirit and character!! She didn't fail to visit Jamaica every Christmas for the past few years to have concerts and to stop and play a piece or two at my church in Kingston. She has inspired me to play with my local orchestra, cello to be exact. I have only dreamed to be under her tutelage. May she finally rest now. Sleep on Dr. Rittenhouse. You will be exceedingly missed but never, ever forgotten. See you in the morning!
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Z-Axis - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 06:51
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Whoa!
Im Just happy that for the last 4 years i have seen her in action doing what she does best with zeal and passion. The Northern Caribbean University Family in Jamaica will surely miss her as Feast of Lights will never be the same again. I can say she helped me to develop a serious appreciation for classical music being the modern Jazz and Neo Soul person i am. She Will Be Greatly Missed.
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Tom Zwemer - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 07:58
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A great tribute to a wonderful gifted life. It is clear that one thing we can take to heaven is an appreciation for music. I must be full of song, because todate none has come out. I long for the day that I can sing the mighty power of God with my wife Betty. I first spotted her singing in youth chapel at the New York Camp meeting. A long bout with a breathing tube in intensive care took that lovely voice away. Recorded sacred music now feeds our soul.
Time and again the humns and choir of church are the most rewarding part of corporate worship.
What a gift, now at rest. We await, Virginia, once again to organize an AUC orchestra. Tom Z
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Bill Cork - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 11:33
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"In the early 1990s, not long after the orchestra began playing in Carnegie Hall with MidAmerica Productions, Rittenhouse became embroiled in a messy political situation at AUC. ... Rittenhouse was accused of racism and a terrible battle fraught with emotion ensued ..."
The author gives no hint what it involved. Fortunately, there was a good discussion of this a few weeks ago on a Facebook page. When everyone in the US was boycotting South Africa because of apartheid, Rittenhouse insisted on taking the New England Youth Ensemble there--to show support for white South Africans! She is said to have made threats against students should they go to a showing of "Cry Freedom" on campus. Spectrum is always ready to show the worst of administrators--I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse. I'm also surprised Spectrum has never written about this sordid bit of AUC history. Let's hear from all sides of students who dealt with Virginia Gene over the years. She belongs to history now.
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Rachelle Berthelsen Davis - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 13:29
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Thank you, Alita, for capturing the essence of who Dr. Rittenhouse was for many of us. You can be sure I will be returning to this article regularly for inspiration and a reminder of why I chose to be a musician and educator.
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Herb Douglass - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 19:36
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The Shankel family, beginning in the late 1940s when Dr. Shankel became academic dean of AUC, has always intertwined with me and my growing family. He and I became fast and loyal friends until he suddenly was taken.
No one could possible add to the eloquence of Alita's glorious ssummary of Virginia Gene's life. Harvey was the paragon of manhood, especially when married to a phenomenon! How I loved him and how I cherished Virginia Gene.
I think the dictionary gets drained of theright words to describe Virginia Gene--and her mother as well. Seems like no public production ever went as planned. Surprises seemed to be planned. Always energy in capital letters. Always the best for her young musicians, even those floors they slept on and the crushing bus tours. Who will ever forget the snappy words, "You can always sleep when you are dead" (with several variations).
I think Gabriel will zip to her grave, present her with a fresh New Jerusalem violin, and have her lead the way "home." Ah, the whole family together again. Thank you, Lord. Cheers, Herb
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Musician - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 20:20
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"I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse"
Clearly you never really knew the woman.
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David Read - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 20:36
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Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse was a remarkable lady, a great musician, a great teacher and mentor, a friend of music and the arts, and a tremendous, force-of-nature personality. She was a blessing, and a symbol of what is best in Adventist education, which need never settle for mediocrity. She will be sorely missed. Her legacy is the love of music--and the love and pursuit of excellence--that she instilled in the many students who studied with her over the decades.
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Ken Osborn - Thu, 09/01/2011 - 22:23
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It's interesting how stories from the past can be seen through different lenses depending on perspective. When I read of Dr. Rittenhouse's death this week a couple of memories came to mind. My family and I were living in South Lancaster, MA at the time of the crisis referred to by Bill Cork. We had just returned from living in Zimbabwe and still had fresh in our minds the visit of the Soweto SDA Choir to Harare. Not only was their music outstanding, but we also felt their hurt and desire to have contact with the "outside" world. When we heard that the NEYE would be visiting RSA we had felt that this would represent an opportunity for the SDA Church to make a non-political statement (we were not aware that the purpose of the tour was "to show support for white South Africans!"). In spite of the fact that the US government was officially taking the stance that there should be no cultural exchanges with RSA, Dr. Rittenhouse doggedly proceeded with her tour. Upon the return of the orchestra we remember the stories members told of visiting the Soweto SDA Church - another going against protocol since the area was considered unsafe and foreigners were advised to stay away. The stories were not about performing for the church members but of the incredible experience of being sung to by the church there. Although it might sound trite this was a case where the blessings of fellowship went two directions. Unfortunately a crisis did emerge as a result of the tour (a crisis from which I don't know that AUC ever recovered) which led to Dr. Rittenhouse's departure from AUC. As I've pondered what took place, while I don't have a pat answer, I've wondered to what extent our Christian witness should be able to supersede political pressures.
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The LaiPang Family - Fri, 09/02/2011 - 02:23
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Dr. Virginia Rittenhouse will be forever remembered in our family. She welcomed our 13-year old son, Miclen, to join the NEYE as a soloist with unselfish love and adoration for Miclen's God-given musical talent. She called our home often just to find out how Miclen captivated her heart and would love to give Miclen every opportunity she could give him in order to be exposed in spreading the word of God through his violin performance. In spite of her busy schedule, she took time to call and extend an invitation to Miclen to perform in Carnegie Hall and in many other places where NEYE went to give concerts.
Surely, she will receive many crowns in Heaven when Jesus comes again. Yes, we will see you in the morning, Dr. Rittenhouse.
With Much Love,
Miclen with his parents, Helen and Michael
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Esther - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 02:09
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Dr. Rittenhouse's legacy is indeed an ambivalent one. She gave many of us who were her students the tools to fight darker aspects of the NEYE such as elitism and racism: a deep and and life-long love of the profoundly humane practice of great music, and a life-long love of travel and cross-cultural curiosity and engagement. In no small way the NEYE developed in us as adolescents the best of the qualities we needed to overcome the worse our qualities. For that I am very grateful, and despite the ambivalence, will always have love in my heart for her and my fellow musicians.
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Winston Bent - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 06:18
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I first met the Shankels & Rittenhouses as an 8 yearold youngster in Jamaica, WI. I have always been inspired by their dedication to their craft. I had the privelege of being touched by their ministry once more while attending Atlantic Union College in the late 1960's. They had a profound impact on others in music, education & medical matters. May she rest in peace.
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Juan Portela - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 08:14
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The political disaster at AUC happened just my second year in the orchestra. Many of my friends took opposing views, and sure, that was painful. Sure, there was a lot of drama. Feelings were trampled, jobs were lost, people moved away. These are the things that happen when somebody dares to matter in this world. The taller you stand, the more that you dare to be, the stronger the winds. She and Harvey were blessed, immovable bastions of purpose and integrity that the world lacks now.
Those strained political conversations in dark rooms are nothing more than a 20-year-old dusty memory to me, but what Virginia and Harvey sowed into my life lives on in the music that I make every day to earn a living. Because of her, you can hear J.S. Bach in David Archuleta's last pop album; you'll hear bits of Mendelssohn in Smash Mouth's next rock record. Because of her, you'll see me foster a passion for music in the young people in my church as I teach them how to make music together. I have more to thank them for than I could feebly write here.
God worked wonders through the Rittenhouses' ministry. I suppose if you want to live a life where you offend no-one, then simply become resolute to do nothing that matters to anyone and you will succeed.
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Preston Hawes - Sat, 09/03/2011 - 20:36
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Ester, "She gave many of us who were her students the tools to fight darker aspects of the NEYE such as elitism and racism"
In all my years with the organization, I never witnessed any "darker aspects of the NEYE" like racism or elitism. In my experience, these are simply construed.
Juan put it very very well. Better than I could have.
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Ester - Sun, 09/04/2011 - 09:09
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Preston:
Surely it's the nature of experience, all experience, that it must be construed? This was my experience; your perspective is obviously different, as could be expected. Both are valid as perspectives. However, I believe you missed my larger point, which was not accusatory. It was to affirm the ultimately positive and life-long value of that experience, without denying its limitations. Indeed, the very human failings themselves had valuable lessons to teach, not the least of which is that one can still deeply love and respect a teacher who nevertheless has caused pain, despite giving us immensely valuable gifts.
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Federico - Sun, 09/04/2011 - 12:09
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Why were Rittenhouse and Bingham relocated from AUC to CUC (now Washington Adventist University) ?
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Shawn Cabey - Sun, 09/04/2011 - 12:39
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Bill Cork: "I'm surprised by the hagiography of Dr. Rittenhouse"
Bill -
Each of us is cursed with great shortcomings. Our flaws are as commonplace as dirt on a shoe. One in ten million of us is blessed with talents that, in the final analysis, positively transform the lives of hundreds of people in ways that will ripple through time. Those of us who fill these pages with hymns to Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse's memory are not posthumous delusional toadies. What we are is grateful. Deeply, eternally, grateful.
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Heather L Griffin - Mon, 09/05/2011 - 17:27
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Alita,
Thanks for republishing this article. I've enjoyed Dr. V-G's music and stories over the years. The orchestra accompanied the chorus I sang with, La Camerata Nuove, on tour to the Holy Land in 1994, where the highlights were performing The Messiah in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and The Choral Fantasy in Amman for King Hussein's birthday; then again in 1996 when the highlights were Beethoven 9th performed in the Roman Amphitheatre in the Old Amman, the Many Moods of Christmas performed in the night air at the Bethlehem University (O Little Town of Bethlemen means something different to me) and the most moving part of that tour--performing Rutter's Out of the Deep and Psalm 23 for Mrs. Laila Rabin. Dr. V-G and Dr. Harvey taught by example. Their welcoming of people "of every tribe, kindred and tongue" reminds me that to be prepared to live in Heaven and the New Earth, one must live that way in the here and now.
Sleep now Dr. V-G, soon your Maker will return to take you to glory where you'll be joined by sooooo many persons to whom you've shown glimpses of Heaven and the Savior through your music. I plan to be among that throng as well.
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Preston Hawes - Tue, 09/06/2011 - 22:04
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Ester:
I see what you're saying, but I just do not associate the word "ambivalence", or its connotations in any way with Dr. VGR. Her existence, influence, and mission was everything but "ambivalent."
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Debbie - Thu, 09/08/2011 - 09:04
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Virginia-Gene was my second cousin (my mothers first cousin) and I can tell you that this article is right on! Any chance we could get to sit around the table and hear her stories, we took! Granted, those stories were so much fun because they were "fishy" in nature...they just kept getting bigger and bigger with time! She never failed to bring smiles and laughter to all of us.
Although I grew up hearing her music, that is not what I remember most about her. She was a wonderful hostess, a kind soul, more energetic than I am at half her age and very in love with her husband, who he in turn, adored her.
I count it a blessing to have called her family.
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Preston Hawes - Thu, 09/08/2011 - 18:47
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I'm trying to figure out whether the person who voted "down" on my post about doing my best to carry on Virginia's dream and mission is voting down because of the mission or voting down because of the "me" part of it... *befuddled*
Regardless, Virginia's amazing drive was such an inspiration, and her care for those less fortunate was truly admirable. The energy of the Ensemble will remain focused on the orphans and street kids of any country we visit and will always play music that is, in the words of J.S. Bach for the "Glory of God, and the Refreshment of the Spirit".
I'm quite sure there isn't anything to vote "down" about that.
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bevin - Thu, 09/08/2011 - 22:22
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Preston, earlier you wrote
>>> In all my years with the organization, I never witnessed any "darker aspects of the NEYE" like racism or elitism. In my experience, these are simply construed.
I have enjoyed several NEYE concerts over the years, and understand that they have specialize in a particular set of genres (probably not the right word) of music, and do not play many of the genres that are played on 95% of the MP3 players, AM/FM/Satellite/internet radio stations, and at entertainment venues through-out the country. I don't recall hearing any Rock or more recent styles come from their instruments - not even Moody Blues or Pink Floyd or other such that have been successfully played by world class professional orchestras.
On the other hand, at the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert I went to last year, I heard Grieg, Mozart, and Rock all in one concert.
Such complete exclusion of even the best of Rock and more modern styles, the exclusion of what is undoubtably the music of the masses, can be construed as 'elitism'.
/Bevin
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Preston Hawes - Fri, 09/09/2011 - 14:13
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Bevin,
While I understand and appreciate your perspective - from a musicians point of view I would have to respectfully disagree. But first I should point out one mistake - the ensemble learns and/or performs modern 20th and 21st C classical music quite often. It is an essential part of any orchestral musician's education.
While I can observe some of the valuable and interesting characteristics of fusion programming, the Ensemble is not only in the business of mission, it is in the business of education. Any orchestral instrumentalist leaving their undergraduate years and expecting to carry on into further study or into the professional field must have mastered a vast repertoire of classical music. I cannot think of a single symphony orchestra for which a musician would audition that would ever require Rock, Alternative, or Jazz on it's audition repertoire list. The entirety of the rep is drawn from the classical repertoire; Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, etc. And to be completely honest, the amount of repertoire a budding musician must master can barely be learned in 4 years alone, even by the most talented of students. Regardless of the other redeemable qualities of these different genres, I would be wasting their time and not doing my job by not preparing them adequately.
And without going into the specifics of musical structure. It is simple fact that perhaps with the exception of some forms of Jazz, the vast majority of Rock, Blues and Alternative are just not harmonically and structurally sophisticated as much of the Classical repertoire. That isn't to say there are not complex characteristics of these other genres (in terms of rhythm occasionally, stacked chord structures and clusters), but the bare structure of it, the stuff that when properly learned will serve the professional ambitions of an orchestral musician, studio teacher, or soloist, are just not found within those genres.
I think your criticism is better reserved for professional orchestras that serve as entertainment to the masses, and is a very valid point; the balance of which is presently being fleshed out by a great many soon-to-be bankrupt Symphony Orchestras.
That said, I don't see some genres easily fitting in to our mission of Musical Education and Spiritual and Intellectual edification within our parameters of music that "Brings Glory to God, and Refreshment of Spirit".
Blessings,
Preston
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Ruth Urdiales - Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:26
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"...the deep sense of mission integral to her sense of self..." But this is ALL you need, "Elisha"....JUST Change "integral to HIS sense of self"... Do not fear at all. EVER.
Love,
Ruth.
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Ruth Urdiales - Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:30
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the previous regarding Preston´s comment on Aug 31....
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. "Unfortunately a crisis did emerge as a result of the tour (a crisis from which I don't know that AUC ever recovered)....."
SO SO right dear friend...
1991 --2011.....20 years! and.....IT HURTS ME TO SEE, THEN GLORIOUS AUC, to beg MASSACHUSETTS education authorities today to grant them reopening....
I AM A STUDENT FROM RIGHT BACK THEN....CORK!
Shawn´s "One in ten million of us is blessed with talents that, in the final analysis, positively transform the lives of hundreds of people in ways that will ripple through time."
SO PERFECTLY SAID BRO!!
YESSS!!!
i miss you man!!!
BIG HUG from your "white-man-minded mexican" buddy. HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Such complete exclusion of even the best of Rock and more modern styles, the exclusion of what is undoubtably the music of the masses, can be construed as 'elitism'." Bevin
A perfectly absurd assertion.
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